Pour la Feste de St. Aquilin à vespres. by (AQUILINUS,…

Manuscript on parchment, 18mo (110 × 80 mm), 26 leaves, including two blanks both at front and rear. Nine lines per page in a large roman hand, rubrics. Some thumbing, one leaf with original stitched repair to a marginal flaw. Original sprinkled calf, gilt panelled spine, remnants of two brass clasp fittings, marbled endpapers. Slightly rubbed and soiled.

Prayers and hymns for vespers on the feast of Saint Aquilinus (19 October), made for the curates of his chapel at Évreux. Aquilin was born at Bayeux c. 620 and served in the army of Frankish king Clovis II. He married but vowed to devote his life to God and the service of the poor. The couple settled at Évreux before he was named bishop, wherupon he built a cell by the cathedral and lived as a hermit. He died circa 695 and the oratory where he was buried was named after him, it remained the site of his veneration until its destruction under applied bombardment in 1943/4.

The manuscript was made by one Louis Fromont for his uncle Mathurin in 1656. The later inscriptions indicate it was bequeated by the curate Le Goulx around 1679.